Identity Politics

ARTICLES ABOUT IDENTITY POLITICS BY DATE - PAGE 2

By Jaithirth Rao In the India International Centre (disclosure: I applied for membership and did not get it), the Left Liberals of our imperious capital must have gathered to talk about Bal Thackeray as a Fascist. In the hinterlands of our country, simplistic imported descriptions like "fascism" are rarely relevant. It might be worth trying to understand Thackeray, and the country at large, on their own terms. Thackeray entered politics because of his father's support for Samyukta Maharashtra Movement.

The shelf life of democracy in Nepal is turning out to be rather short. And, instead of adhering to its credo of 'uninterrupted revolution', the Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (UCPN-M) has become a party to this brutal interruption of democracy. The dissolution of the Constituent Assembly (CA), after it failed to give the fledgling republic a Constitution in spite of innumerable extensions, has undoubtedly precipitated a constitutional crisis. To see the situation merely in those terms would, however, amount to barely scratching the surface.

KOZHIKODE: The " identity politics " theory, now being discussed widely by Leftist intelligentsia in India, where caste, religion, ethnicity and gender play dominant role in shaping politics, has few takers in the CPI-M leadership, going by the draft ideological document to be presented today at the on-going 20th party congress here. Intense discussions are expected at the congress on the issue as Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury presents the draft of the new document, seeking to find an "Indian path" to socialism in the context of anti-imperialist struggles across the world.

LUCKNOW: Foreign journalists are on the ground in UP, swapping pitch reports, making caste calculations and trying to make sense of the state's rainbow politics. From noting Congress's PM-inwaiting Rahul Gandhi's charisma, or not, to making "well-placed " suggestions that Akhilesh Yadav could be chief minister if SP is voted in, foreign publications are in total election mode. In "Elections in vast Indian state are window on nation's politics", the New York Times notes that the "changing role of caste and religion, the impact of public disgust over corruption and rising public desire to share fruits of economic growth" are the voters' main concern.

C P BHAMBHRI It continues to be a great puzzle to identify the factors or events that motivate a voter to exercise his right to vote in highly-competitive elections that are regularly held in every democratic political system on the basis of universal adult franchise and secret ballot. Every democratic political system has created powerful organisations like the Election Commission of India for the conduct of free, fair and fearless elections. A very important thinker, S M Lipset, in his classic The Political Man, has characterised the political contest during democratic elections as silent, peaceful and participatory class struggle that is organised by political parties.

We hope nobody in the central government or the ruling United Progressive Alliance is tempted to entertain, leave alone concede, Darul Uloom Deoband rector Maulana Abdul Qasim Nomani's demand that the central government deny author Salman Rushdie a visa for his proposed visit to India. Considering the high-profile presence of Mr Salman Khurshid in the government and the Congress and his inglorious role in raking up a roiling controversy over Rushdie's Satanic Verses in the late eighties, such a craven contingency cannot be ruled out, even after his statement on Tuesday that if there is no legal bar on his entry, the government would not interfere.

It is welcome that the Congress and the BJP have finally found the courage to come out against the Shiv Sena's chauvinism on Mumbai. However, this does not mean that the Congress and the BJP have become good guys defending India's national unity against local chauvinists. The BJP's opposition to the Sena brand of chauvinism stems from a different form of chauvinism, one that excludes non-Hindus from its concept of citizenship and nationhood. Since this is geographically spread all over India , it cannot accept Mumbai, or any other city, as belonging only to a subset of the nation as it sees it. Therefore, endorsement of the BJP's opposition to the Sena on Marathi monopoly over Mumbai cannot extend to its wider worldview of excluding non-Hindus from its vision of Indian nationhood.

The founding fathers of our secular democratic republic had expected that the right to equality given to every citizen along with universal adult franchise will lay the foundations of a new social and political order. This order was envisaged as one where fragmented, parochial and narrow caste- and sub-caste-based identities will become completely redundant. The basic philosophical premise of the Indian Constitution-makers was that universal fundamental rights given to every citizen irrespective of her caste or creed will lead to the emergence of a casteless society whose foundational principle would be equal opportunity for all citizens.

Is a third front desirable, even possible? Our answer to that is an emphatic yes. There is most certainly space for a left-of-centre force in Indian polity. The country, which is currently in the thick of economic reforms, could well do with a truly secular political agency that would guard against economic concerns over-riding or subverting social equity without derailing economic growth. Such politics of constructive dissent is, however, the last thing on the minds of leaders of eight regional and/or caste-based parties that came together in Hyderabad as a first step towards forging an "anti-Congress, anti-BJP front".

Race to the bottom That people can die fighting for their right to be ever more backward is tragic, and a double condemnation: of quotas as the preferred form of affirmative action, and unidimensional conceptualisation of economic reform. The violent agitation by Rajasthan Gujjars ? who are demanding that the BJP fulfil its election pledge by 'downgrading' them from their 'other backward caste' status to that of scheduled tribes ? demands an urgent rethink on both counts.